The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus - Platonic Philosophy

Whose holy form in budding fruits we view,
Earth's vig'rous offspring of a various hue :
Espous'd in autumn 54, life and death alone
To wretched mortals from thy pow'r is known :
For thine the task, according to thy will,
Life to produce, and all that lives to kill 55.
Hear, blessed Goddess, send a rich increase
Of various fruits from earth, with lovely Peace :
Send Health with gentle hand, and crown my life
With blest abundance, free from noisy strife;
Last in extreme old age the prey of Death,
Dismiss me willing to the realms beneath,
To thy fair palace and the blissful plains
Where happy spirits dwell, and Pluto reigns.
54 "The rape of Proserpine, says Sallust (De Diis et
Mundo, cap. 4) is fabled to have taken place about the
opposite equinox ; and this rape signifies the descent of
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According to Lydus De Mensibus, the festival of Proserpine
was celebrated on the sixth of the Nones of October.
Hence the reason is obvious why Proserpine is said in this
hymn to have been espoused in autumn.
55 Proclus, in Plat. Theol. p. 371, informs us, that accord-
ing to the Eleusinian mysteries, Proserpine, together with
Pluto, governs terrestrial concerns, and the recesses of the
earth ; and that she supplies the extreme parts of the uni-
verse with life, and imparts soul to those who by her power
are rendered inanimate and dead. This is perfectly con-
formable to what is said in the above hymn.